


In the Dark, You Found Me

by decembersiris



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Resident Evil 3 Remake, Sharing a Bed, Tumblr Prompt, carlos feels things, implied PTSD, jill feels things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decembersiris/pseuds/decembersiris
Summary: Carlos didn’t expect anyone at his door, not at such a late hour. And to find Jill standing before him was a pleasant and concerning surprise.
Relationships: Carlos Oliveira/Jill Valentine
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	In the Dark, You Found Me

A knock came, swift and light that Carlos was scarcely sure he heard it, a knock that must have fallen upon his neighbor’s door, certainly not his own. It wasn’t so much the knock that roused him from near sleep, but the warm, white buzz of the static between channels on his television that crackled and spat like a storm in his ears. Rubbing his eyes and stretching, he slowly glanced at the nightstand for the remote but was greeted instead with his alarm clock glaring a harshly saturated red light that screamed 2:03 am.

“Stupid remote.” He grumbled with a sigh and thrashed to kick off the blank, a coiled snake tangled about him in his bed.

He rose from the bed. Shoulders slumped and mildly sore—he must have been sleeping wrong—he half heartedly took one last glance about his bare, small studio apartment for the remote. Damn, probably fell under the bed.

The knock came again, a rasp that echoed harder against the wood, and Carlos’s eyes darted to his door. He immediately wondered who would be calling on him at such an hour, but as the knock came again, he did not give it much more thought; he immediately went for the drawer of his nightstand and took out his pistol. Keeping it at his side, he left the white light of his TV, the static of the television in his ears replaced by the pounding of his heart as he entered the dark end of his apartment. His hand on the doorknob, he peered through the small hole and saw the figure through the door. Nearly dropping his gun, he swiftly unlocked the door and opened it, the frigid winter night letting in a swirl of snowflakes, chilling him to his bones.

“Jill!” The name left his lips, and he would smile at the sight her had she not been shivering in the snow.

“Hey,” she smiled, hugging herself against the cold.

The questions fell from his mouth, “What are you doing here? What happened? You okay?”

An icy breeze rattled them both, and Jill shivered, “Let me in, yeah?”

Carlos did not hesitate, opening wide the door for her to enter. Dressed in nothing but her pajamas, Jill rubbed her arms and blew warm breath into her hands as she stepped inside. After flicking the light switch on, Carlos immediately reached for the spare blanket on his bed and handed it to her. Teeth chattering, she thanked him and wrapped it about herself. 

Carlos watched her as she shuddered against the new warmth, her cheeks and nose rosy against her frost-kissed skin. Her blue eyes sparkled as she glanced about his place, and he bit the inside of his lip. She then looked back to him. “No couch? Or table? Or chairs?”

He scoffed lightly, “Uh, I’m in the process of movin’ still.” He pointed to the boxes he had stuffed into the corners of the room.

She nodded, her eyes glancing downward. “That for me?” She asked lightly, eyeing the gun in his hand.

He glanced down at it, remembering the weight of it in his hand, then looking back at her. “Oh, uh, I just wasn’t expecting any company...”

He trailed off and stepped around her, returning the gun to its home inside his nightstand.

“So what happened? Are you okay?” He asked.

She did not meet his gaze, and instead took it upon herself to sit down on the corner of his bed. Her expression, Carlos noticed, was tight, a line pulling at the corners of her lips and a small crease at her forehead. In the white light of the tv, Carlos could see the pink of the residual cold had vanished, but her skin remained whiter than milk. The purple rings about her eyes were like dark ash, and Carlos wondered if the wet sparkle in her eyes was a mirage reflected by the television.

“Jill?”

“Good show,” she said half heartedly. “Is this what you fall asleep too?”

She forced a smile his way and clutched the blanket a little closer. That was when he saw her fingers, cracked and split skin, and her nails bit down to the nub with the raw skin underneath exposed. Some, he noticed, were speckled with blood.

Watching where his gaze fell, Jill’s false smile dropped, and she hid her hands within the blanket, her eyes returning to the TV that sat on a box he had yet to unpack. That was when Carlos turned it off, shoving it with more force than he intended. He sat beside her, and pried her hands from within the blanket. Jill did not resist him much to his relief, and with a frown that grew with each passing moment, he inspected her raw, bloody finger tips. He sighed through his nose, his heart aching as he looked up at her. Her expression had softened to sorrow, and he stroked her knuckles with his thumb.

“Have you been taking your meds?” He asked softly.

“They haven’t been helping,” she said, pulling her hands out of his grip.

Carlos felt the warmth of her hands leave his. It stung, but he had felt this before, he told himself. It was the nature of their relationship; it had been this way for so long, and yet he thought he’d have grown used to it by now. 

Sighing lightly, he found his thoughts returning to the moments they shared, the ones unraveling in the dark warmth of the night, the ones built upon trust and confidentiality, the secrets of their hearts laid bare between them that they could not tell to anyone else. No one else could understand, not the fear that they felt, the uncertainty, the guilt, the loss. No one else was there in Raccoon City to share what they had. No one else could have their memories after either. Jill had felt these feelings before, Carlos knew, but yet, it could not be denied that theirs was their own. He wouldn’t call it special, those dark memories they had between them. But quietly, he treasured them.

And from those memories, he recognized what had become of her, what had transpired that led her here.

“How bad was it this time?” He asked softly, the heavy weight of his concern dripping from each syllable.

Her eyes flashed; the moment was brief but he saw it. She immediately resigned into herself, unable to look at him, and his heart ached.

“Jill?”

“Can we go to sleep?” She deflected. “I’m tired, Carlos. Please?”

He sat for a moment, considering her. It was late, yes, but here she was, sitting before him at two o’clock in the morning. What did she want if not to talk? Did she want a safe place to rest her head? Did she not feel safe at home? Did she not trust herself alone? The thoughts set him on edge.

But she broke their silence and said, quietly, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Her tone was fear. Her tone was sorrow. And Carlos could see it all in the blue of her eyes as well as her exhaustion. How could he deny her? He nodded, feeling it best to grant her request than pressure the matter and upset her further. And admittedly, he was tired too.

Silently, he prepared the bed for her, dusting off the sheet on the mattress and pulling up the blanket. He offered the bed and graciously took it, leaving the blanket she was given on the side of the bed. After turning off the light, Carlos took the thin blanket and reached over for the spare pillow.

“What are you doing?” Jill asked.

He tilted his head, a small frown of confusion tugging at his features, “Gonna sleep on the floor.”

“No!” Her reply was quick and sudden like the snapping of burning wood in a blazing fire. But then she paused, searching for the words that pricked up her tongue. “I don’t want to force you out of your bed for my sake.”

His heart leapt, a spike to his blood that sent a sweet shiver down his spine and spread like warm embers through his limbs. And in soft sincerity of her eyes, he felt his heart melt. Whatever to make her feel comfortable, to forget her sufferings, he told himself, anything to make her happy.

He crawled into bed beside her, and she rolled onto herself, her back to him as he made himself comfortable. He was careful where he shifted, not waiting to touch her, to disrupt the sacred space between them. There they lay in the quiet of the dark together, the silence like a thunderstorm that Carlos was certain she could hear his heart pounding.

But then Jill gave out a shudder, and Carlos turned his head to look at her.

“It was the same nightmare.” Her voice was nearly a whisper, “But it was worse this time.”

She sucked in a deep breath, and he could see the shadow of her form in the dark rise and fall as she sighed.

“I could feel everything.” She swallowed as she struggled against the quiver in her throat, “I could feel you on top of me. I could feel you biting and tearing through my throat.”

Carlos winced at the thought, at the vivid flashes of his imagined that lingered behind his eyes. He was sickened by the idea, sickened every time she tells him when she has the nightmare. But he was certain that while he was repulsed and saddened that all her dreams of him were brutal, she felt a thousand times worse. Did she resent him for it, he wondered. Did she hate him?

“I went for a drive to clear my head,” she explained. “I-I needed to see you. I just needed...”

“It’s okay, Jill.” He replied soothingly. “I’m alright. And so are you.”

He wanted to reach out to her, to stroke arm, her hair, her cheek. To let her know the deepest corners of his heart, that, like her, he suffered his own share of wounds.

But that was a liberty, a kindness he could not afford to ask her, one he daren’t take. He’d never breech the boundary of their friendship, not without certainty that he was wanted in the way he wanted her. He didn’t deserve it, he told himself many times in the middle of the night, unable to sleep from the dreams and nightmares of her. Only in sleep could he pretend otherwise.

But then, as if in the dark, she pried open the innermost secrets of her heart. As if she read his thoughts and somehow felt that same need, she muttered so quietly he couldn’t be sure he heard her. “Hold me,” came her murmur.

His mouth turned dry, and his heart could not still itself, his mind furiously working against her words, convincing himself he had only manifested a lie.

All intrusive thoughts ceased upon hearing her speak again. It was low, her voice heavier than simply crestfallen at his hesitation, a touch closer to the sound of despair in the one word she uttered, “Please.”

Guilt seeped into the back of his mind at the pain he has caused her for making her plea for his comfort. But immediately he ignored it, shifting himself closer to her to wrap his large arm about her midsection. She took his strong hand in hers, squeezing it as she sighed in relief. Clasping it, she held his hand to her chest, curling against his body.

He could feel the curve of her against him, the way they meddled against each other. She was soft and warm and small. She was everything he wanted, and here she lay in his arms, tightly holding his hand to her. He felt her relax into him, and he couldn’t help but smile, resting his head into the pillow. He could smell the conditioner she used—some sort of flower scent, perhaps lavender—and he relished it.

It didn’t take long for Jill to fall asleep. She snored lightly, sweet and rhythmic, gentle and calm that Carlos’s eyes grew heavy with every steady breath. And as his eyes closed, he took solace in the chance that tonight, they would sleep well.


End file.
